Library Mama

The Unwritten Vol 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity by Mike Carey and Peter Gross Metafiction! With action! Tommy Taylor is the star of a Harry Potter-like series, only it’s even more popular. And Tommy Taylor is not grateful that his father made the real Tommy Taylor star of a fictional series, making the fictional character close enough to the real that some die-hard fans believe him to be the boy wizard. But his father disappeared years ago under mysterious circumstances, leaving Tommy penniless. Now, suddenly, evidence turns up that Tommy might not really be his father’s son. A young woman calling herself Lizzie Hexam might have some answers – if Tommy can survive that long. While the excerpts of the Tommy Taylor stories as presented don’t seem like they would actually rival Harry Potter, the fiction within fiction and fiction crossing the borders to the real world is fascinating. It’s an exciting story, filled with references to other great works of literature for the discerning reader. Fans of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books, which have more humor and less reflection on the capricious nature of fame and fan worship, may enjoy this as well.

Rex Libris: I, Librarian by James Turner Some libraries have gone soft, allowing talking, hanging out, even tolerating overdue books. Not at Middleton Public Library, where Rex Libris and Circe are in charge. Middleton may sound average, but it has rare books from all over the universe, and is situated on a convergence of ley lines that allows fictional characters to wander around the library from time to time. Hard-hitting sesquipedalian librarian Rex Libris is on the job, preventing evil samurai from destroying the library and journeying to outer space (assisted by his gun-happy chickadee) to retrieve overdue books from space emperors. I have read more than once that comic books use higher vocabulary than regular fiction, but this uses the highest proportion of erudite words I have ever seen in a non-scholarly text. It’s also highly self-aware, with editor’s notes from a fake editor at the beginning of each issue (several bound together in the book) and the occasional nonsensical intrusion from the editor, which Rex must take a break from the story to protest before the story can continue. The one downside is that the book has such dense and tiny text (was it shrunk down to fit the paperback?) that it took focus and holding the book up close to read. Still, this is good adventuring for book-lovers with a sense of humor.

Long ago, in my grandparents’ basement, among the boxes of old toys and china, I found an ancient paperback pulp novel of Zorro. I took it home with me and read and reread it. So dashing! So handsome! And thus began a life-long love for the original masked avenger.

Zorro by Isabel Allende. Read by Blair Brown.
Zorro Vol.1 by Matt Wagner, Isabel Allende, and Francesco Francavilla

I am a little slow in reading Isabel Allende’s book – the hardcover book came out in 2005. I am grateful to my love for discovering that my home library (as opposed to the one where I work) has the book on audio – a format in which I’m much more willing to take on longer works these days.

Rather than telling the stories of his adventures in Alta California, as did the original novel I read, Allende’s version is an origin story, starting with Zorro’s parents. Alejandro de la Vega, Zorro’s father, is a Spanish soldier turned landowner, while his mother, Regina, is a half-Indian half-Spanish woman, formerly the Indian warrior Toipurnia. The young Diego’s milk brother, Bernardo, is from the same tribe as his mother, so despite the class differences from the Spanish point of view, they consider themselves full brothers. Diego and Bernardo study with Diego’s Indian grandmother, the tribe shaman, and eventually travel to Spain, where Diego studies with a legendary sword master. The tale is beautifully told but a little on the verbose and slow-moving side; there is action, but on disc 9, Zorro is still traveling back from Spain. The original story, lends itself well to this Alexandre Dumas-style pacing, and to the racial and sexual equality themes that are there in plenty. Blair Brown does graceful work narrating the audio book, with fluid pronunciation of the many Spanish words. This is a noble and engrossing effort from Allende.

More recently, based in large part on the Allende novel, but drawing on other Zorro retellings as well, comes the comic book version. (This is what first attracted my love to the Allende.) Allende’s basic story is there, somewhat simplified, but where Allende tells the story strictly in chronological order, the comic book series intercuts the stories of Diego’s early years with the adventures of the grown Zorro. This, together with the painted artwork, makes the comic feel more exciting than the book. The book is narrated by a character we meet halfway through and are not sure is the narrator until the end, while the graphic novel is clearly narrated by Bernardo from the very beginning. I wouldn’t want to miss either of them – but if you have to pick for yourself, the Allende version will give you a more nuanced, literary version, while the Wagner will go straight for the swashbuckling adventure.

Age of Bronze. Vols 1-3 by Eric Shanower There was this famous war in the Bronze Age in a city named Troy, about which many, many stories have been written over the centuries, including most famously the Iliad, which somehow doesn’t include some of the most famous bits of the legend. Shanower is doing his best to weave these stories into a cohesive whole. Not only did he read a lot of stories, but he did a lot of art and archeological research to make the settings, the clothes, and the people as accurate and realistic as possible. Naturally, this amount of research appeals to the library geek and the historical recreationist in me, but all would be lost if the story didn’t work. Shanower’s beautifully detailed drawings and expressive text bring the ancient characters to life. He’s made the decision not to have the gods appear in the story, though the characters nearly uniformly strongly believe in them and appear to receive messages from them. While a strong break from the Iliad, it’s a choice that makes the story more accessible to modern readers, who may pray for guidance but don’t generally view people as heroes who succeed only because the gods made it happen. It also makes the story deeper and more ambiguous: did Aphrodite really promise Helen to Paris? Or is this just another excuse from a young man who demonstrates overpowering arrogance and belief in his own charm from the very beginning, starting with deciding to win the royal athletic contests to win back his family’s bull and continuing on to kidnapping Helen instead of liberating the aged aunt he was sent to rescue, just because he didn’t care about an old woman. I just read the entry on the Iliad in Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan; one of the things he mentions is how cinematic Homer’s language is. This work feels cinematic as well, as the view zooms from close-ups to wide panoramas. Though in line with the Iliad, the war itself is just getting started at the end of volume three, there’s plenty of violence, sex and mayhem to keep things going in the meantime. This is a book that manages to be beautiful, macho and compelling all at the same time.

I went to a lovely convention, Kids Read Comics, a few weeks ago. I learned lots about graphic novels (mostly for kids, but still) and met several lovely librarians. At least one of whom I referred to this blog, and in the process discovered that “graphic novels” is a pretty teeny tag in my cloud, and I hadn’t reviewed any gns recently. Pretty pitiful given the amount of time I spend picking out what to buy for my collection. So I thought it was time for me to actually read a few more.

French Milk by Lucy Knisley This memoir in graphic form has been getting some good press. Knisley and her mother, both celebrating birthdays – 22 for Knisley and obviously older for her mother – decide to spend a month together in Paris. While there, they look at lots of art, do a fair amount of shopping, and eat lots and lots of good food. Some reviewers commented on the nuanced portrait of the mother-daughter relationship; I didn’t really notice this much. There was good commentary on the art, which I should have expected from someone enough into art to be drawing a memoir. Somehow I was surprised anyway. I was less surprised by the loving commentary on the food, given that the book is named for her love of the milk in France – many, many meals and snacks drawn out, with written descriptions. I put this in adult again because I wasn’t sure how many teens it would appeal to; the most graphic it gets in terms of actual sex or violence is a mention of missing her boyfriend with a drawing of a wrapped condom. There is also some humorous nudity in the art references, as Knisley talks about how tired she is of the female nude as a traditional art topic, showing a couple pages in a row full of sketches from museums. This is worth looking at for the lover of France or food.

Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation by Tom Siddell And now for something fun. Gunnerkrigg Court is the first print volume of a popular web comic, set in a spooky British boarding school/industrial complex. Our heroine is young Antimony Carver, just starting at Gunnerkrigg Court following her mother’s death. In the first short story, Antimony finds that she has a second shadow, which turns out to need help getting to the dark and forbidden Gillitie Woods, across a brightly lighted bridge. In typical Harry Potter fashion, finding little help from adults, Antimony finds her own solution – scrounging enough spare parts to build a robot to help the little stray shadow. As the stories progress, Antimony is befriended by a girl named Kat, whose parents (now teachers at the school), Antimony’s mother and now-missing father, as well as a few others, were part of a tight group of friends. Again as in that Potter book, there’s a hint that they were involved in something bigger than innocent school friendships, but the mystery isn’t fleshed out much in this first book. Though the mother’s death and the mystery, as well as the literally dark setting, give the whole book a dark feel, it’s dark and snarky humor. In one of the early stories, for example, Antimony’s favorite stuffed animal is possessed by an untrustworthy but not altogether malignant demon who finds himself forced to obey her commands. Read it on line if you prefer, but please do read it. Assuming, of course, you like magic and technology fused with dark humor.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan A man leaves his wife and daughter, traveling along streets shadowed with the wings and tails of giant monsters. He sails across the sea in a huge boat, arriving in a strange land to try to find work and save enough to bring his family over. The setting is mostly early twentieth century but with strong elements of the bizarre. The drawing style looks like a series of old sepia photographs. It’s told entirely without words – even the signs on the buildings are in a script that neither we nor our immigrant understands. This was all over the comics blogs Best of 2007 lists (it took me a while to get to it.) Somebody in one of the blogs I read then – I wish I could remember who – pointed out the nifty way Tan notes the passage of time. On one page, all we see is one little square after another of clouds, as we watch out the window of the steamer with the immigrant. I loved reading books about immigrants as a child, but there’s a level of being in the experience that this has that a book where I can understand the language just can’t.

Palestine by Joe Sacco Journalist Joe Sacco visited Palestine for a couple of months during the first Intifada, the early 1990s, and reported in graphic form. Very graphic. There are the muddy streets and tiny houses of the camps, the torture, even an honor killing. Also, a whole lot of sitting in rooms full of men, drinking tea and talking. The bumpy, less-beautiful than reality pictures are punctuated with wavy wedges of text describing what he’s seeing, gritty days in Palestine alternating with sparkly, modern nights in Jerusalem. This is not book with a coordinated message or a neat ending. It’s reality, as told to the author by people on both sides. While Israel doesn’t come off looking like the noble saviors of democracy in the Middle East the politicians talk about, the Palestinians are equally racist, and fighting for traditions that are bluntly appalling. If you’re looking for a jumping-off point into modern history of the area, this is a good one. Pair it with Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds for views from both sides of the road blocks.

"Didn't that Librarymama used to read?" you ask. We first started watching the dvds of this from the library. When there were no more dvds at the library (tragically soon), I turned to the books. I haven’t been sure if I could do an adequate job of describing their appeal. But now that I am turning down three other legitimate already started books to check out more Fruits Basket, I thought I should probably try.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya This is the most popular series of shojo or girls manga so far. Tohru Honda is a Japanese high school girl. Recently orphaned, she finds herself unofficially adopted by an isolated household of the large and wealthy Sohma clan. While everyone knows of the Sohmas, only a very few know of their curse: every generation, one person will represent each of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, plus the cat, who was tricked out of attending the banquet. When they are hugged by a person of the opposite sex, these cursed people transform into their animal selves for a while. Tohru, despite the many misfortunes that have befallen her, is relentlessly optimistic and always believes the best of everyone. (How does she sound too good to be true and yet remain absolutely appealing? Her struggles to pass class must be part of it.) Now she’s living with the older Shigure, the dog, as well fellow high school students Yuki the rat and Kyo the cat. Naturally this situation gives ample opportunity for suggestive but chaste humorous interludes as people bump into Tohru and transform. But the character drama is what makes this really addictive. The otherwise quiet and polite Yuki and the rude but soft-hearted Kyo are constantly getting into fights – but find themselves spending more time together to spend it with their adored Tohru. Tohru just wants to get to know them better, and meet the other members of the Zodiac. The fan letters published in the book are always asking if Tohru will choose Yuki or Kyo. It’s not going to happen. The beauty is in the attraction, where a slight and otherwise innocent gesture carries more tension than your average explicit scene. Somewhere in the volumes I haven’t read yet – I think it’s up to 20 or so now – they might try to break the curse. For right now, it’s mostly personal drama, with the occasional drops of information about the curse slowly accumulating in the background. I could say more, but I have two more books to read tonight.

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham. Illustrated by Charles Vess et al This is the just-published prequel to the long-standing Fables series. In the Fables world, the Adversary has been taking over all the fantasy worlds one by one. The characters have been fleeing to our New York City, where they have established an underground community led by Snow White and King Cole. In this book, Snow White is visiting the as-yet-unconquered Arabian Fables world, trying to convince the sultan – yes, that sultan – that he should ally himself with the New York Fables community. Naturally, he refuses to meet formally with an unattended woman, so she is sent to him as a concubine. Instead of sleeping with him, she entertains him with tales of escaping Fables to win him over. Each tale is beautifully illustrated by a different comic book artist, with the incomparable Charles Vess providing the illustrations for the frame story. These are most definitely fairy tales for adults, with familiar fairy tale characters in often horrific situations. But the stories are compelling and the illustrations lush, making this a beautiful introduction to the world of Fables while standing firmly on – or between - its own covers.